October 2009 Blog Posts (16)

Yesterday was the big day for my current group on the Business Talking course on Kamimo Island - their first assessed task. For me it was the day I printed up all the feedback forms, filled the coffee mug and sat down to concentrate on what they were saying - so hard that even the night security man didn't come and disturb me.

I'm running two sessions each meeting this time round, so at 3.00 pm the contingent from Beijing, Shanghai and Moscow came along (the regular 6.30 pm meeting… Continue

I'll be doing my usual preaching about the massive potential of SL to the lively people who come along! (They usually smile indulgently!!) Please say hello if you're there .. I'll definitely be at the sessions I'm in (!) on… Continue

The focus will be on the following themes in language pedagogy: computer mediated communication; Web 2.0 technologies; mobile learning; and intercultural exchange. It is hoped that the discussions will widen to… Continue

A French-speaking guide showed me around, showing me a wine cellar, a cheese shop, the port and a mock-up of Louis Pasteur's house. There is a Christmas Village there too, complete with ski resort, chair lift and Father Christmas!

Then the guide directed me to a magic chair that took me on a tour of the whole… Continue

There aren't going to be as many as one a day of these blog posts … it's just that I did something more today! After each Course Meeting I try to publish a podcast, really as a way trying to keep the group together. This is quite a challenge with these 'place of study' SL courses, because the students never meet IRL. I've been podcasting on my courses since 2005 and the feedback I get is always very positive. It seems as if being able to listen to the teacher's reflections at regular intervals… Continue

I teach English at a small university in south-east Sweden, and I've been running a university course exclusively in Second Life in each of the last four terms. The course is called Business Talking and successful students get 3 European Credits for it. Students apply for it in exactly the same as for any university course in Sweden, and we haven't been advertising it at all, mainly to keep the student numbers down to a level we can handle!

I dabbled in Chinese many years ago. I followed a BBC radio course in spoken Mandarin, and I can still remember a bit. More recently I have visited Ling's Chinese City in SL. Using my X-Lang translator, I… Continue

Teacher Education is a personal interest of mine. I have been involved in training language teachers to use ICT since the mid-1980s. It was a major activity of mine when I was Director of the Language Centre at Ealing College (later merged into Thames Valley… Continue

I presented on our M3 Project (integrating a MUVE, Second Life, and a Microblogging tool, Twitter with a Moodle course for international students ) in September at Eurocall, Spain. If anyone is interested, the slides are available here: